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Christianity, the Friend of the Working Classes. 



ADDRESS 



OF 






Hon. Charles D. Drake, 



DELIVERED IN 



PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER 24, 1880, 







Second General C 01lnc il 



OF 



The Presbyterian Alliance. 



\ . 



Address. 



It was a wise thought that placed in' the programme of 
discussions here the broad topic, — Christianity, the Friend 
of the Working Classes. It was a brave thought as well, 
to formulate it as an affirmation, rather than as a subject of 
inquiry ; and so hold up before the world a great Bible 
truth. The choice of the speaker to discuss it may prove 
to have been less wise. If so, he can only say, " he hath 
done what he could." 

In the working classes the numerical majority^ the pro- 
ductive force, and therefore the physical life of any nation, 
abide. Whatever elevates the spirit, purpose, and morals 
of those classes, elevates the nation at home and abroad; 
and, on the other hand, whatever depresses them in spirit, 
or weakens them in rightful purpose, or degrades them in 
morals, hurts the nation in a vital part. Hence there is no 
more pregnant inquiry, than for those things which may 
justly be called the Friends of the Working Classes. And, 
when found, they should be embraced and enshrined ; for, 
as working classes must always be, whatever benefits them 
in any period, sends a venture down the stream of time, 
which may yield good profit in all the future. 

Christianity is the system of doctrines and precepts 
taught by Jesus Christ. It is to be estimated and judged, 
not by the glosses, the interpretations, the simulations, or 
the imputations of men, nor by the halting, inconsistent, 
and often sinful lives of many of its professed followers ; 
nor even by the lives of the best of its disciples ; but by 



the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, which 
are the word of God. From them let us reverently learn 
how it is that Christianity is the Friend of the "Working 
Classes. 

In Nazareth, where he had been brought up, Jesus 
stood in the synagogue on the sabbath day, and read from 
the book of the prophet Isaiah, where it was written, " The 
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me 
to preach the gospel to the poor ; he hath sent me to heal 
the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, 
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them 
that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." 
And he closed the book, and sat down. And as the eyes of 
all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him, 
he said unto them, " This day is this scripture fulfilled in your 
ears." And then broke forth from his astonished and 
wrathful hearers, — " From whence hath this man these 
things ? Is not this the carpenter ?" And those last words of 
derision have come down, as it were, along the telephone of 
the ages, to the ear of every working man and working woman 
to whom the gospel has come, or ever shall come, announc- 
ing Jesus to them as one whose heart would ever sympa- 
thize with them in their trials and in their rightful triumphs. 
Thanks to the enraged and contemptuous Kazarenes for this 
evidence that Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, was 
one of the working classes, a mechanic, a carpenter. They 
could have uttered no words which would have better told 
the working classes of every age and clime, that the Chris- 
tianity which this despised and rejected ISTazarene came to 
found, would be a true friend to them. 

This bright promise is sustained by the whole body of 
the Scriptures, far more fully than there is time now to 
show, or than need be shown in such an assembly as this. 
Let it suffice for this occasion, first, to point to some of the 
special needs of the working classes in all places and times ; 
and then prove, in God's own words, that the demands and 
precepts of Christianity, if met and obeyed by employers 
and employed, would satisfy those needs to the uttermost. 



I. A chief need of all working men and women every- 
where is, that their wages be paid. They work for reward, 
it is their bread. The expectation of reward is to them the 
vital force of muscle, and sinew, and nerve, and purpose. 
Take that away, and the brawny arm falls limp, and the 
deft fingers lose their cunning. For them, and against all 
employers who wrongfully withhold their wages, hear the 
voice of God, crying, " Woe unto him that useth his neigh- 
bor's services without wages, and giveth him not for his 
work !" And, as quick payment is the worker's daily need, 
God says, " The wages of him that is hired shall not abide 
with thee all night until the morning." And, as if "all 
night " were too long, God speaks again, and says, "At his 
day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down 
upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it." And 
yet further, listen to the Lord's warning of vengeance : " Go 
to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that 
shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted and your 
garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered ; 
and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall 
eat your flesh as it were fire. Behold, the hire of the labor- 
ers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept 
back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have 
reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth." 
And when those cries are heard on high, the rust of the 
cankered gold and silver will not be the only witness against 
the rich wrong-doer ; but, saith the Lord of hosts, " I will 
he a swift witness against those that oppress the hireling in 
•his wages: I will come near you to judgment." 

II. A second special need of the working classes is 
security in their industry and their gains : not merely the 
tardy, uncertain, and often feeble protection afforded by 
the municipal law, which too often the poor are pecu- 
niarily unable to invoke, but the higher and costless safety 
resting upon men's obedience in heart and lite to the 
law of God. True, this is. the need of all ; but it is pre- 
eminently so of the workers, to whom every hour of peace- 
ful labor, undisturbed by apprehension or remembrance of 
wrong, is of douhle value, and every farthing gained is 



6 



more than a pound to the rich. Men's laws never have 
kept pace with men's desires and devices to wrong their 
fellow-men ; nor do they reach the thoughts and intents of 
the heart; and therefore imperfection is in them all: but 
"the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul," taking 
hold of the consciences of men, and implanting within 
them that fear of God, which is not only the beginning 
and the instruction of wisdom, but teaches men everywhere 
to hate and depart from all evil. In this law is the solid 
hope and defense of the world's workers. Though its con- 
verting power has conquered comparatively few of the 
myriads of earth's people that have been, and though the 
outlook is not promising for the speedy conversion of the 
human race; yet none the less should the law of the Lord 
be held up everywhere and always, till the day, surely to 
come, of its final and glorious triumph in the regeneration 
of a fallen world. Standing upon that law, Christianity 
has ever arrayed itself against every form of spoliation of 
the worker by the rich and powerful, from the lowest grade 
of mere injustice up to the highest of lawless rapacity. Let 
the voice of Christiana's God be again heard : " The Lord 
will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people 
and the princes thereof; for the spoil of the poor is in 
your houses. What mean ye that ye beat my people to 
pieces, and grind the faces of the poor ? Forasmuch as 
your treading is upon the poor, ye have built houses of 
hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted 
pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. 
For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty 
sins. Thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbor by 
extortion, and hast forgotten me. Behold, I have smitten 
mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made. 
Can thine heart endure, or can thy hands be strong, in the 
days that I shall deal with thee ? I the Lord have spoken 
it, and will do it." 

III. A third special need Qf the working classes is some 
solid foundation for hope of bettering their worldly con- 
dition. With the great majority of them the struggle is 
usually for mere life. The days and months and years of 



toil bring them no more than food and raiment; to vast 
numbers not even that; and life wears away with nothing 
srained. And vice comes and weaves its subtle and fatal 
net about them, evil associations grapple them, and Satan 
rides triumphant upon the wild and turbid currents that 
sweep them into the abyss of despair and death. 

The question, of great and lasting moment to them and 
to every portion of society, is, not whether the working 
classes can be lifted bodily into affluence and high social 
position, for which they would be unfit, and where they 
would cease to be workers ; but how, by what course of 
their own, by what action of others, they can, as working 
classes, be raised to a higher plane and a better condition 
of physical life. Left to fight the sullen and unequal battle 
of life alone, the most of them have only defeat and disaster 
in view ahead, from whose blasting sight there is no refuge 
but the grave. Shall they be so left? Every principle of 
Christianity, every dictate of mere humanity says, No. 
What shall come to their help ? Shall it be Civilization? 
Shall it be Philosophy ? Shall it be human Morals ? Shall 
it be Philanthropy ? Each and all of them, at one time or 
another, in one country or another, have taken the mighty 
problem in hand, and, so far, each and all have failed to 
solve it successfully and finally. The plain and startling 
truth is, that the spirit of man, in and of itself, is, and must 
forever be, unequal to its solution. His schemes are as 
sand, when the vital need is a rock. But what the spirit of 
man cannot do, the Spirit of God has done. Behold in the 
Rock of Ages the ouly stable foundation upon which the 
world's workers can build a hope of steadily and perma- 
nently rising to a higher plane and a better condition of 
earthly life. 

Men might as well, first as last, open their eyes and 
their hearts to these great truths of God, — that " Right- 
eousness is the habitation of his throne ; " that " He that 
followeth after righteousness findeth life; " that " The work 
of righteousness shall be peace ; and the effect of right- 
eousness quietness and assurance forever." These truths 
are precious stones in the foundations of Christianity; and 



upon them rests the great proposition, that, except in that 
righteousness, there is no real and solid basis for hope of 
the working classes ever being able to gain a condition of 
higher worldly prosperity, and abide there. Some, under 
favoring circumstances, may achieve success, and obtain 
riches and honor and power, and so rise above their class ; 
but the rest will be left behind. What is needed is hope 
for the class ; and let them awake to the divine truth, that 
that hope lies nowhere but in that righteousness; for only 
in that are found all the principles, motives, purposes, and 
means which God may be expected to bless with substantial 
and lasting advancement and prosperity. 

But it is not enough that this righteousness be found 
in the working classes alone. Were every working man 
and working woman in the whole world a sincere and 
blameless follower of God, that fact would avail only par- 
tially to better their worldly state, unless it were met by a 
like condition in the rest of the race. Divide mankind 
to-day equally between the righteous and the unrighteous, 
and not an hour would pass before it would have to be 
written on high, — " The wicked in his pride doth persecute 
the poor : he plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon 
him with his teeth : they have drawn out the sword, and 
have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and 
to slay such as be of upright conversation." And so, at 
last, the hope of the working classes for a real and perma- 
nent betterment of their worldly condition, must rest on 
the double foundation of righteousness in themselves, and 
righteousness in the rest of mankind. This foundation 
Christianity alone can lay; for it is laid upon Jesus Christ 
the Rock of Ages ; and in all the systems known of men 
there is no builder upon that Rock, but Christianity. 

But through all the long ages, perhaps, that must roll 
away before the millenial dawn shall herald the da} 7 of 
Christ's universal reign, it is the high and holy mission of 
Christianity, at all times, in all places whither it may go, against 
all odds, with one hand to batter down the unjust barriers 
which the selfish, the grasping, and the rapacious ever seek 
to rear against the upward progress of the working classes ; 



and with the other to hail those classes to trust in the Lord, 
and do good, and wait patiently for him. 

Let them hear what Jehovah saith to their oppressors. 
From out the thunders of Sinai, " Thou shall not steal" for- 
bids oppression, extortion, and all other unjust or sinful 
ways of taking or withholding from another what belongs 
to him. And listen to the repetitions in other words and the 
enforcements of that commandment : " He that oppresseth 
the poor reproachcth his Maker : he shall surely come to 
want. He that by unjust gain inereaseth his substance 
shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. Because 
ye despise this word, and trust in oppression, and stay 
thereon, therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach 
ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking 
cometh suddenly at an instant. Hear this, } 7 e that swallow 
up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail : the 
Lord hath sworn, Surely I will never forget any of their 
works. Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one 
mourn that dwelleth therein ? And it shall come to pass in 
that day, saith the Lord God, that I will turn your feasts 
into mourning and all your songs into lamentation ; and I 
will bring up sackcloth upon all loins and baldness upon 
every head ; and I will make it as the mourning of an only 
son, and the end thereof as a bitter day." 

And hear what the Lord saith to them that are oppressed : 
" The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all 
that are oppressed. He delivereth the poor from him that 
is too strong for him, yea the poor and needy from him that 
spoileth them. He shall save the children of the needy, and 
shall break in pieces the oppressor. The Lord will maintain 
the cause of the afflicted and the right of the poor. He 
shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence : and pre- 
cious shall their blood be in his sight." 

IV. A fourth special need of the working classes is a 
fit provision for the poor. It is no more true that " the poor 
shall never cease out of the land," than that in every land 
they are to be mainly found in the working classes. Too 
true is it also, in all lands, that " the rich man's wealth is 
his strong city, and the poor man's destruction is his pov- 



10 



erty ; " but nevertheless, the world over, it is of the ordering 
of Providence, that, while the working classes are depend- 
ent, directly or indirectly, upon the rich for employment, 
and so for livelihood, the rich are just as dependent on them, 
not only for the revenues that enrich them, but for soldiers 
and sailors to defend them and their countrj-in time of war. 
Their wealth is absolutely at the mercy of foreign invaders, 
or of lawless and ungovernable mobs, springing, as it were, 
out of the ground at , their very doors, unless the 
working classes rally to their defense. It is, there- 
fore, mere common justice for private and public means to 
co-operate in providing for the poor. This duty Christianity 
inculcates by manifold precepts and injunctions. Thus 
speaks the Lord : " Blessed is he that considereth the poor : 
the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. He that hath 
pity on the poor lendeth to the Lord : and that which he 
hath given will he pay him again. He that giveth unto the 
poor shall not lack : but he that hideth his eyes shall have 
many a curse. Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the 
poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard. TIjou 
shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thy hand from thy 
poor brother; but thou shalt open thy hand wide to him." 
Aud as the sum of all, the Lord said unto Moses, " Speak 
unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say 
unto them, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself " : aud 
the Son of man, so poor in his human life that he " had 
not where to lay his head," repeated the blessed words to 
his disciples, to be, next to love to God, the very foundation 
.precept of Christianity forever. 

V. A fifth special need of the working classes, without 
which they must suffer both bodily and mental deteriora- 
tion, is a stated and regularly recurring day of rest from 
labor. This is not the time for discussing the great subject 
of the sabbath and its observance. That will be treated 
here by far abler minds, a few days hence.. At present it 
suffices to consider Sunday simply as a day of rest, with 
reference to the working classes. On that subject time for- 
bids extended remark; and in fact it is not necessary. 
It is a law of nature that all men, whether they work 



11 

or not, must have rest ; and at night they seek and 
obtain it. But all experience proves that working men 
and women need more rest than night alone affords ; 
and that therefore it is a necessity to set aside periodically 
a whole day for cessation from labor. Men and communi- 
ties that do not acknowledge the obligation of the Christian 
sabbath, have awaked to the vital importance of Sunday as 
a day of rest. Said Lord Macauley in the English House 
of Commons: " We in England are not poorer, but richer, 
because we have these many ages rested from our labor one 
day in seven. The day is not lost. While industry is sus- 
pended, while the plough lies in the furrow, while the 
exchange is silent, while no smoke ascends from the fac- 
tory, a process is going on quite as important to the wealth 
of nations as any process which is performed on more busy 
days. Man, the machine of machines, the machine com- 
pared with which all contrivances of the Watts and 
Arkwrights are worthless, is repairing and winding up, so 
that he returns to his labors on the Monday with clearer 
intellect, with livelier spirits, with renewed corporeal vigor." 
This is the judgment and the testimony of a leading Eng- 
lish mind from the standpoint of mere political econ- 
omy ; and toward those conclusions all nations having 
knowledge of Christian civilization are rapidly tending. 
But they are mere followers. It was the God of Chris- 
tianity that ordained one day in every seven as a day of 
rest. It was no device or thought of man ; but the off- 
spring of infinite foreknowledge and wisdom, for the 
physical as well as the spiritual good of the human race, 
but pre-eminently of the working classes, through all time. 
And let it be remembered by those classes in every land, 
that in Christianity is the best safeguard of this ineffable 
gift of the all-wise Father. If Christianity had no other 
claim to the title of Friend of the Working Classes, it 
could triumphantly rest it upon its spirit and works as the 
defender and conservator of the sabbath. 

VI. Finally : The greatest and most urgent need of the 
working classes, as it is of all men, isliELiGiON. Few will dis- 
pute this proposition; butwhenachoice is to bemadebeween 



12 

different forms of religious faith and observance, world-wide 
differences arise. In the very nature of the case, there can 
be but one true religion; but many different bodies may 
each claim, as they do, to be its true representative. The 
most of Christendom is divided between the Eoman church, 
claiming to be the only true one, and asserting that outside 
of itself there is no salvation ; and the Reformed churches 
of all names, claiming to be of the church universal ; which 
they hold to consist of all who make profession of the holy 
religion of Christ, and of submission to his laws. In one 
or the other of these two great bodies all who call themselves 
Christians must be ranged; and between them the working 
classes must choose. To which should they look for spirit- 
ual help in their rugged journey of life, and for guidance to 
the mansions of the blest on high ? This is no time or 
place to hesitate in answering that question according to the 
faith of the " Reformed Churches throughout the world 
holding the Presbyterian system," and composing this Alli- 
ance. Those churches hold, that the religion best suited to 
the working classes, and all other classes of men, is not that 
which bows down to a man, deified by men as infallible, and 
holding himself aloft as God's vicegerent on earth ; but one 
which worships God alone. Nor is it a religion of a domi- 
nating hierarchy, pronouncing its decrees and conducting its 
worship in a tongueunknown to the commonpeople; but one 
whose humble ministers carry the word of God to the poor, 
as did their divine Master, in the language of their every- 
day life. Nor is it a religion promising salvation through 
the intercession of a woman, or of a priest, or of saints, or 
of angels; but one resting on the intercession of the great 
" High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus," alone. Nor 
is it a religion which shuts the Bible to the people, and com- 
mands them to look to pontiffs, prelates, and priests to learn 
what God says to man; but one that opens God's holy word to 
all human creatures, and would lovingly put it into the hand 
of every man, woman, and child, to read, learn, and under- 
stand for themselves. Nor is it a religion of pictures and 
images and relics, that hides away from its votaries the second 
commandment of the Decalogue; but one that says to its fol- 



13 

lowers, as God said to his people Israel, " Thou shalt not 
make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any 
thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, 
or that is in the water under the earth : thou shalt not bow 
down thyself to them, nor serve them." Nor is it a religion 
claiming that poor sinful man's works of merit may bring 
God in debt to him for eternal life ; but one that hum- 
bles the lost sinner at the foot of the cross, there to find 
rest and peace to his soul through the blood ot the once 
crucified, but now risen and exalted Redeemer of men. 
This is the religion which meets the soul-needs of the poor 
and lowly. It sees their low estate, and says to them, 
" He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly shall 
dwell on high, and his eyes shall behold the King in his 
beauty." It knows their troubles and their conflicts, and 
shows them the Prince of Peace. It knows their sorrows, 
and brings to them the Man of sorrows, who was 
acquainted with grief heavier than theirs. It knows their 
darkness, and tells them, "Unto you that fear my name 
shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in its 
wings." It knows their sins, and points them to the Friend 
of sinners. It knows their tears, and says, " God shall wipe 
away all tears from your eyes." It knows their days aud 
night of weariness, and bids them hear the Saviour's loving 
call, " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest." It knows the thirst of their souls, 
and says to them, "Thirst no more, for the Lamb which is 
in the midst of the throne shall lead you unto living foun- 
tains of waters." To those heavenly fountains, hear the hail 
of the Son of man to the sons of toil in all time in all the 
earth : " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, 
and he that hath no money ; come ye, buy, and eat ; yea, 
come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." 

This is the voice of that Christianity which is the Friend 
of the Working Classes in all earth's nations. For it, " let 
everything that hath breath praise the Lord." 

And now, let the whole world stand forth before God, 
and say whether, if the commands, and precepts, and prom- 
ises of God, as they have now been passed in review, were 



14 

henceforth obeyed, lived out, and rested upon by all, the 
certain result would not be the speedy and lasting rise of the 
working classes in physical power, in intellectual strength, 
in material prosperity, in moral force, aud, consequently, in 
influence in all the world's affairs. 

And again let the whole world stand forth before God, 
and say what else than Christianity, that mortal man has 
ever known or heard of, has, in all the history of humanity, 
anywhere led, or can ever, in all the long hereafter of time, 
be rationally expected to lead those classes upward to that 
higher and nobler destiny. 



Christianity, the Friend of the Working Classes. 



ADDRESS 



OF 



Hon. Charles D. Drake, 



DELIVERED IN 



PHILADELPHIA, SEPTEMBER 24, 1880, 



BEFORE THE 



Second Qeneral Coixncil 

OF 

The Presbyterian Alliance. 



H. 153 8* * 



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